Weekends are awesome, but not for body clock.

Monday morning, my speaking alarm shouts ‘Eight O’ Clock’. My mind (whom I also call as my ‘Guru’) says to me ‘Dude, if you’re not in the office for the 9:30 meeting, you’re going to be in deep trouble’. I know that my meeting is very important and I cannot make it up in time, if I don’t get up know. I also know that my boss is going to be mad at me, if I go late. Then, I made a decision - I rose my hand, took it out of my comforter, while my eyes were still closed facing my pillow, hit the snooze button on my alarm clock.

Image courtesy of winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I could neither sleep nor wakeup. I screamed at my Guru ‘Do something!!!’. My Guru, who thinks logically (at least most of the time) says – ‘dude, this is not the first time, this is happening. You have to address this issue, permanently. To do so, you have to first understand, why you’re in this situation. Let us analyze what you did to your sleeping and your body clock in the last 4 days.’

Last Wednesday and Thursday, you got up at 7 in the morning and went to bed at around 11:30 at night. Your body or biological clock is set for this time. On Friday, you got up 7 AM, went to office and then, as usual, went to Friday party. At 11:30 PM, while your body clock was set to sleep, you were partying hard. You went to bed at around 3:30 AM, Saturday. And further, when your body clock was set to wake up at 7 AM, you were sleeping and finally got up at 1:30 PM, that too because you were hungry. And more over, on Saturday night, you didn't go to bed in time, you went to sleep at 4 AM(Sunday), after watching movies and playing in xbox. You confused and messed your body clock. Yesterday (Sunday) night, you wanted to go to sleep at 11:30 PM, so that, you can get up today (Monday) at 7 AM and go to office. But, as you have messed up your body clock, you were not able to go to sleep at 11:30 PM, in spite of trying hard. You went to sleep only at 2:30 AM. Obviously, your body is not ready to wake up by 7 today. Aren’t you insane to expect you to wake up at 7 AM. You have to pay for want you have done’.

The voice alarm said 'Eight Fifteen’. Now, I have no choice then to get up pushing myself hard and go to office.

I rushed, got ready and finally reach office and somehow made to my meeting. However, I couldn’t perform well in the meeting as I couldn’t concentrate.

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This incident happened seven months back. Now, I don't have difficulties getting up early in the morning. What am I doing differently now? Did I stop partying? No; all I do is, even if I go late to bed; say at 3 AM in weekends, I try to get up at around 7 or 8 am, not in the noon as I use to do earlier. I don't mess up my body clock too much. I do all my morning work and sometime in the afternoon, I have a small nap to compensate the sleep I lost in the previous night. So, my body always knows that it has to get up at around 7 AM in the morning, irrespective of the time I go to bed. Initially, it was tough, but, now it has become my habit to get by on time. I believe we have to make certain good things like rising on time as our habits. It may not be easy, but it’s definitely possibly with little bit of commitment.

Though everyone know that proper sleep is important, most people mess-up their body clock due to various reasons like demanding office work, personal commitments, etc. But, irrespective of the reason, it’s our responsibility to provide us with proper sleep and to maintain proper body clock, which should know when we will go to bed and when we will wake up. This is to very important to maintain proper physical and mental health.

Comments

No HTML is allowed in comments, but URLs will be hyperlinked. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites.

sending

Author

Dear Arun 4 years agofrom Washington DC, USA

sarahshuihan - Sounds like a good idea. Let me try that... thanks....

Sarah 4 years agofrom USA

It might be hard for you because you might not be getting proper rest when you do sleep? I'd suggest doing some nighttime routines so your brain and body understand that's time to rest. Even something simple as reading a book, brushing your teeth, etc. but in the same order every night can help. Good luck.